These two kinds of knowledge are evidently crucial for the chances of implementation of a potential law. By legal knowledge, we mean, on the hand, knowledge about the existing law and its practical consequences and, on the other hand, a basic understanding for the systematics of law, i.e. the eradiating influence of one law on other connected laws or regulations and legal entitlements generated hereby.
“[..] You say the phrase `within the limits of their possibilities´ should be deleted... Read more ...

In this way, the boundaries of the knowledge mobilized by one party constitute the potential horizon of knowledge mobilized by the opposing one. In this case, the unwillingness or ignorance of the majority party to adopt scientific recommendations of integration experts, to secure financing and appropriate equipment (i.e. economic aspects) for the schools and to acknowledge statistical data depicting a severe selectiveness of the Bavarian school system defines exactly the knowledge areas... Read more ...

So, concludingly, the functional knowledge on the part of the CSU in the decision-making process seems to have been mainly personal knowledge about the feasibility and acceptability of political decisions gleaned in personal hearings with local actors, visits of schools etc., and institutional/legal knowledge about the present structures of the education sector and the social fields potentially affected by the amendment, including the possible feedback into the political process in the form... Read more ...

This practice of negotiating the internal political will first, and then searching for knowledge supporting this point of view of the party, is not limited to the party of CSU, but has also been shown by the two other parties in the Bavarian Parliament at that time. For example, during a hearing with scientific and other experts, one representative of the Green Party reacted to the recommendation of one expert with the statement: "We will consider your suggestions, discuss them and if they... Read more ...

The heterogeneity of interests reported to us by CSU-politicians, and the consequent maintaining of the existing educational possibilities in Bavaria with only the added option of integrative schooling, could be conveniently combined in the CSU´s decision-making process with the second crucial knowledge element we identified: the present institutional situation, as we already mentioned above. It is evident that a system of separated schools for healthy children on the one hand and all kinds... Read more ...

Our first findings show the principal differences between scientific knowledge production and its political usage. We see a reciprocal discontent between the scientific advisors or experts and the advised politicians: both of them blame the other side with not having enough knowledge to make scientific advising more effective. Read more ...

Yet, a sudden surge of political activity in that field really started in the late 1990´s, when media attention was being directed to several cases of “misbehaviour” committed by teachers and principals integrating disabled children and, thus, defying the laws in force at that time: “[..] a child, a mentally disabled child, had been taken out of the [regular] school, the state’s supervisory school authority did this, and put the child in a school for disabled children, although all the people... Read more ...

To define, which children are healthy and which are not, who has "regular" and who has "special" needs in Education is traditionally a question of medical and psychological matter. For long times it seemed that these questions can be answered objectively through standardised testing and other examination methods. This seemingly objective knowledge of natural sciences has to be translated in social contents: policy has to regulate the Education of the selected children. The answer in the... Read more ...

The way Europe relates to bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy is complex, because Europe itself is diverse and comprises different spaces where tensions between bureaucracy and postbureaucracy play out in various ways. This new context challenges both research and policymaking, requiring much greater reflection on the nature of knowledge and its mobilization in policy. These problems were the central concern of the European project KNOWandPOL.